Linked by Jordan Spencer Cunningham on Mon 4th May 2009 23:46 UTC
Hardware, Embedded Systems The Acer Aspire reviews were getting a little old, so instead of adding yet another anectode of the popular netbook, I thought I'd shake things up a little by giving my view of Asus' slightly more expensive (but worth the extra money) EeePC 1000 HE for the enjoyment of all.
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darknexus
Member since:
2008-07-15

A very well-done review, and I have to agree with most of what you said. The 1000HE is the netbook I own, and I love it! In fact, I specifically waited for the 1000HE over any other model of netbook when I heard about it in November--I was going to purchase the 1000, but I held off when I saw an announcement about the 1000HE.
My Ubuntu experience differs slightly from yours, in that the camera on mine did work out of the box without tweaking. However, I know some users have had to turn it on manually, for reference here's the command to do it:
echo -n 1 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/eeepc/camera
Or, if you've enabled root and aren't using sudo:
echo -n 1 >/sys/devices/platform/eeepc/camera
The -n switch to the echo command isn't strictly necessary, it's a habbit of mine to use it when echoing parameters to sysfs. Another Ubuntu issue, and it's minor, is that the battery discharge times are extremely inaccurate, and I mean by a few hours. For instance, on a full charge I'm often told I have approximately five hours remaining, despite the fact that I easily get seven and a half hours with wifi and bluetooth enabled. Note that I haven't updated the bios yet, so this may be a bug in the bios's battery estimation. I didn't keep the preloaded Winxp--erased it immediately--so for all I know this problem could have shown up in XP as well. Another interesting thing is that the screen blank key in Ubuntu acts as a screen loc, i.e. instead of merely blanking the screen you are put at the unlock computer dialog and need to enter your password to unlock it.
Other observations: It's a bit thicker and heavier than I expected, though to me the extra battery life is well worth that little bit of extra heft, and I don't mind the thicker case since it prevents the battery from bulging out of the back like on some other netbooks. The fan seems to run a lot more than I would've expected, this is caused by the heat of the hard drive and may be an issue specifically with the hd in my unit. Has anyone else with a 1000HE noticed their fan running almost constantly once the hard drive heats up? Interestingly, the CPU itself never seems to get hot at all, so perhaps it's a preemptive measure so the hd doesn't warm everything else over time. I've ordered a 2gb stick of ram, 1gb gets a bit configning when running Firefox and Openoffice at the same time.
A very nice review to go with what, in my personal opinion, is the best netbook on the market right now. If you want value for your money (and who doesn't?), give the 1000HE a serious look.
One word of warning to potential buyers: The one that is sold by Bestbuy in the U.S for USD $349 is not the 1000HE, it's the 1000HEB. It lacks Bluetooth, uses the Atom N270 instead of the N280, and comes with a more typical battery that lasts about five hours rather than the high-capacity battery of the 1000HE. So, that "deal" isn't really a good deal after all, as it is mismarketed as the 1000HE.

edit: Wrong command, accidentally included the command to turn the camera off instead of on.

Edited 2009-05-05 00:31 UTC

aitvo Member since:
2006-09-03

For Ubuntu you just need EeePC ACPI Utilities. It'll take care of your CPU, FSB, Fan, all the extra keys, and it'll turn your hardware on and off (WIFI, Bluetooth, etc)

https://sourceforge.net/projects/eeepc-acpi-util/

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2

darknexus Member since:
2008-07-15

Thanks, will check this out. My battery life is good, but a little extra never hurts.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2